Chi Dat Lam (Daniel)

Chi Dat Lam (Daniel)

PhD Candidate of Linguistics

The University of Chicago

Biography

I am a student in the Linguistics PhD program at the University of Chicago. My principal research interest is working memory mechanisms during sentence comprehension. I use psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic methods (specifically EEG) to investigate the interaction between representational complexity and working memory in language processing. I am part of the Language Processing Lab under the guidance of Dr. Ming Xiang. My dissertation research is supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, #BCS-2116952.

Interests
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Neurolinguistics
Education
  • MA in Linguistics, 2019

    The University of Chicago

  • BA in French Studies / Biology, 2017

    Duke University

Projects

I am working on my dissertation project, which examines the encoding, maintenance and retrieval of complex linguistic representations in working memory. The project employs both self-paced reading and electroencephalogram (EEG). Specifically, it is guided by three research questions:

  1. How forming complex representations with more features can be beneficial or costly to the three core working memory processes: encoding, maintenance and retrieval.
  2. How feature similarity within a complex chunked representation can facilitate or hinder working memory processes.
  3. How the formation of a hierarchically chunked structure affects the retrieval of its individual components.

I previously worked on a project examining statistical learning and determiner-noun fusion in Haitian Creole.